


Spring Fever

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: Naruto
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Ninja, ninja are badass, so are teachers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 18:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12114636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: Spring is an insidious season that a good Shinobi should avoid at all cost. If he can't do that, he can at least avoid falling for someone way too nice and out of his class altogether.





	1. Spring Fever

**Author's Note:**

> For Askerian, who dragged me into Naruto fanfiction in the first place :D This was my first fic in the fandom.

Spring fever can be a distracting ailment, even for Shinobi.

Spring came to Kakashi’s attention as he and his three recently-promoted Chuunin minions- underlings- gofers- _students_ that is, were resting after a violent fight on a B-class mission. While the rest of Team 7 lay around and panted like hounds, the Jounin noticed a small shy bloom pushing its way towards the spring sunshine on a nearby bush.

Kakashi used it for target practice with his shuriken, and gave himself a perfect ten when he managed to slice the small flower into four sections on the same throw. His students, who panicked when he started hurling weaponry through the foliage, got a minus five each for not following their teacher’s train of thought and for flying off the handle so easily. 

That was it as far as Kakashi noticing the season went. 

They returned to Konoha. Kakashi tossed his report - bloodied, dog-eared, used at one point to clean his kunai and now held together with duct tape - onto the table, and got a long-suffering look from Iruka in return. That was when the insidious spring season retaliated. Kakashi suddenly noticed that Iruka was rather easy on the eyes.

His thoughts, inspired by Paradise Publications Inc. material, were somewhat cruder than that, but that was the gist of it.

Not that he was going to do anything about it. Iruka was a very nice person. Shy, prone to blush, caring, kind-hearted, honest, polite, meek even, everything that Kakashi was not. Hell, Iruka was even punctual. More to the point, Iruka had never harmed Kakashi in any way, and unless the gentle schoolteacher had killed a nun in a previous lifetime, he didn’t deserve something like Kakashi happening to him.

 

\---

 

Normally Kakashi only saw Iruka at the mission desk or at occasional teacher's meetings. Team 7 was on a week-long break between jobs for rest, recreation and extensive training, but their Jounin-sensei's schedule was widely different than that of the studious schoolteacher. Kakashi should not have seen the slightest hint of that pony-tail anywhere near him for a certain time.

Apparently spring wasn't done with Kakashi yet, because he accidentally ran into Iruka four times on the first day and three times on the next. And then there were the schoolteacher's appearances in Kakashi's dreams that night. Something about a school desk and a ruler- Kakashi had done his best to inflict selective amnesia on himself, because he wasn't sure he could deal with that one if he didn't have anybody to kill for at least another week.

Since the blasted spring fever wasn't dying down on its own, Kakashi decided to learn more about his unattainable target, in the hopes that that would convince his libido that this was Not Going To Happen. The only other solution he could think of would be to find a dark-haired prostitute with a scar across his nose, and what were the chances of that happening and being anything less than very expensive? 

Like the information-gathering expert that he was, he started rounding up his facts. 

“And when I brought out my own special move- the centerfold, yanno- man, I thought Iruka-sensei’s nose had exploded for a moment.” Naruto paused to tip his bowl up and swallow. “Then he yelled at me for twenty minutes straight, which I think is a record- was that the record, guys?”

“No,” Sakura corrected automatically, stirring in some soy sauce. “It was the time you finally managed to transform correctly into the Third Hokage, and to road-test it you marched into the teacher’s lounge and cancelled school for the rest of the week.”

“Oh yeah. Pity that didn’t work.”

“That’s because your transformation skills are pathetic,” Sasuke stated around his chopsticks.

Kakashi decided to ignore the ensuing fight, so long as it remained verbal and didn’t destroy the restaurant before he’d finished his lunch.

So Iruka reacted that much to the Sexy No Jutsu? Surprising. Kakashi’s life depended on being able to read people, and he was pretty sure Iruka didn’t swing that way. Besides, the schoolteacher looked so...proper, so _nice_ in Kakashi's eyes. He could imagine Iruka fainting, or being horrified, or- Then again, that spell was extreme; it had felled even the old Hokage himself. Kakashi was the single male in the village above the age of sixteen who didn't hemorrhage at the sight of that particular ‘special move’, and that was only thanks to massive desensitization. He'd tried to get the Expenses Department to reimburse the cost of his Icha Icha Paradise collection under the header of 'ninjutsu resistance training', but the harridan at the head of that office hadn't been impressed by his arguments.

“And he nearly stopped me from graduating,” Naruto growled. Apparently the fight had died down already. It had only been a two point five on the Team 7 Disaster scale, since nothing had actually been broken. “Jus’ because I couldn’t produce a clone that could actually walk- but I showed him! Then…well, he was kinda…after I beat up that bastard Mizuki and all, Iruka-sensei was actually pretty cool.”

Naruto stopped talking and fingered his forehead protector, eyes distant and warm. Kakashi wondered what 'pretty cool' was. Now if it was him, it would have been 'Kakashi-sensei was pretty cool because he only hit me about the head a tiny bit for falling into Mizuki's trap and robbing the Hokage in the first place’, but he was ready to bet that Iruka had forgiven the little pest instantly. 

Kakashi leaned past the momentarily stilled and quiet ramen-eating machine, to interrogate his other students.

“What about you, Sasuke. What do you think of Iruka-sensei?”

Sasuke didn't bother to glance up. “Who?” 

“Right. Sakura?”

“He was pretty strict- but I guess he was nice with the young kids, and he always gave me extra points for my essays. Of course he played favorites, and wasted his time with desperate cases who couldn't learn even the simplest henge for ages.“

“And he let Kiba bring his dog to school, which just can’t be right, not when he yelled at me for bringing in a couple of snakes,” Naruto mumbled around a pork cutlet he’d managed to fit into his mouth (apparently what Sakura had said hadn’t actually registered, and probably wouldn’t for another few minutes). “And he’s got no sense of humor, and he barges into my place about once a month and makes me _clean_ , and-“

If they can be so harsh on a wonderful, compassionate teacher like Iruka, I wonder what they say about me, Kakashi wondered. Whatever they say, they probably can’t make it scary enough.

“Yeah, but that’s because he loves you, right?” he mused absently.

Naruto spurted miso broth from his nose, and spent a couple of seconds choking. 

“Lo-you-wh-Iruka-sensei- I mean, he’s okay, like- and he stands up for me, sure I guess you can say he kinda _likes_ me a bit, but saying love is like saying girly-“ 

Then Naruto’s brain visibly factored in the ‘Kakashi’ element.

“Are you calling Iruka-sensei a perv?!” Naruto bellowed, immediately stopping all conversations in the restaurant, the kitchen, the street outside and the entire west side of Konoha.

“No, no,” Kakashi murmured, instead of quartering his student and burying the body in four different graveyards. “I’m just curious about him. He put up with you lot for all those years. And he hangs out with you and buys you ramen on a regular basis, right? That’s got to mean he’s a kind, loving guy.” Or possibly a masochist.

Naruto’s face was a picture, the kind found on circus posters when the freak show’s in town. Next to him, Sakura and Sasuke had frozen over their bowls of Kakashi-provided ramen.

“You think buying somebody a bowl of ramen means there’s some pervy emotion involved?” Naruto asked in the kind of voice that Kakashi normally associated with the kid's demonic guest.

“No, no,” Kakashi repeated, hoping he sounded honest, kindly and well intentioned. Sasuke and Saruka were still staring at their bowls as if the noodles had turned into snakes, so obviously their teacher hadn’t mastered such an unfamiliar register.

“I bought you guys lunch because you’d done so well on the mission,” he added, trying to make it sound convincing.

There was a moment of silence while his students apparently contemplated that possibility. Sasuke slowly pushed his bowl away and Sakura took a long gulp of her water. Naruto looked like he was on the cusp of a life-shattering inner battle as he clutched his noodles and shuddered.

“Okay, I treated you guys because you didn’t screw up too badly this time,” Kakashi sighed, letting his chin sink into his hand. Better change the subject. He’d bought the ramen in the hopes of pumping his students for information, but looked like that was a waste of time and money. Hell, at the speed Naruto had been going through bowls a few seconds ago, the prostitute would have been cheaper.

He didn't know what the boy was getting uptight about. It was obvious just observing them together that Iruka loved Naruto like a kid brother (the screw-up clumsy kind). They hung out occasionally; Iruka would meet Team 7 after some of their tougher missions and groan and roll his eyes over Naruto's bruises and sliced up clothes; Naruto would make out that he'd saved the entire team single-handedly, and Iruka would listen without bursting into laughter; then Iruka would toss food Naruto’s way, and smack him when the boy ate like a starving tiger on a fiber diet-

Come to think of it, this was definitely a guy-only way of saying they liked each other. Love...Kakashi doubted Iruka had ever phrased it to Naruto that way. But it would be impossible to spend that much time with the kids and not love them, if you were a nice guy like Iruka.

Hell, if Kakashi were tortured - red-hot pokers, thumbscrews, Gai's lengthier proclamations, the works - he would himself have to admit that he rather lo- lik- could stand his students better than most of the people in the village. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he lo- liked them, of course; he was a killer, a tough no-nonsense Jounin. You didn’t go around lo- liking people when you had that kind of reputation to maintain.

But in his more serious moments, he’d told them that he’d die for their safety, and he meant that. If you tied up those same Chuunin students and starved them for five days, they’d probably admit that they relied on their seemingly easy-going teacher a lot more than they let on, and that his approval and guidance were more important to them than they cared to admit.

Yeah, if you dug down deep enough, it was unfortunately evident that they all rather lo- liked each other. A bit. 

Kakashi gave his students a tender, affectionate look, just for the pleasure of seeing them stiffen and edge away in open alarm. The brats weren’t too bad, really. So fun to mess with. And a bunch of little hellcats in a fight. Team 7’s enemies could attest to that, if you consulted said enemies with the help of a good medium. 

And they’d been trained by Iruka, who might have been a bit stricter with them than Kakashi had previously thought. Come to think of it, the man had turned Naruto into a seedling ninja of sorts. True, Kakashi hadn't been very impressed with the result when Team 7 first came together under his leadership, but after dealing with the kid himself, he wasn't sure he could have survived, let alone train, a pre-teen Uzumaki. So...Iruka had to be a very nice, very patient man; that definitely proved it. 

But Kakashi wasn't going to get any real details out of his students; he might like them (a little bit) but he knew them well enough to realize that they were as self-centered as a trio of tops. They obviously had no powers of observation in regards to grownups. 

Time to go to the source. Because Kakashi was getting curious, even discounting the prompting of his hormones. 

 

\---

 

"Class." Iruka clapped his hands. He sounded remarkably cheerful for someone who'd met a large group of six-year-olds at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning. "Come together please. This side of the field, away from the targets."

Kakashi was up a tree, well hidden from the grounds below. He watched with interest and the occasional shudder. He eventually came to the conclusion that stuff like B-class missions were a piece of cake.

Screw endurance training. Kakashi didn't think he'd ever withstood any survival exercise that could beat watching these hellions for a single day. The only reason Iruka wasn't a super-elite ninja by now was that he must be too tired to pass the exams.

"Katsuo! Don't stab your little friends with a kunai."

Maybe he was in training to take over as Hokage.

"Okay, who threw that shuriken?"

Either that, or there were no children in the target range at all, only Iruka clones, and the real kids were buried somewhere in the woods out back.

"I know it was you, Yorike Ichiro. If you ever get to be a genin - which at the moment I doubt - you’ll know that a Shinobi can trace the direction of a shot from the impact angle. That was my last warning. Start running, and don't stop until I say so."

A couple of old ladies had paused beneath Kakashi’s tree to discuss the latest gossip. Kakashi had been keeping an ear open to their chat for any potential blackmail material, so he overheard the following:

"Oh look, there’s a new class in for weapon’s training today. They've not settled down yet, I see. Umino-sensei is such a kind and patient man."

"He'll have them as well-behaved as the other classes in no time, I’m sure. He's so good with the children. Such a nice man. Everybody says so."

Yes, Umino-sensei's been doing this for several years now, and he's not become a psychotic killer. Or at least he's not been caught. Go him.

"Good throw, Yoko. Now, try hitting the target you were actually aiming at, okay? Go on, try again. Oops- 

Frantic flapping.

"Don't worry, pigeons are tougher than they look."

Kakashi watched the bird shoot out from the yard, minus a few tail feathers. His tree was behind the kids and their teacher, but he was starting to wonder if he was quite safe up here after all.

Iruka directed his charges through exercise after exercise. Kakashi factored in the age and lower stamina of the participants, and decided that if he put Team 7 through the equivalent of this course, they would howl loud enough to put a Sound ninja's sonic attacks to shame. Kakashi watched in growing amazement. Occasionally, he took notes.

"Don't worry, the cut’s not that deep. Go to the infirmary, then go home. And by the end of the week, I want an essay from you on safe handling of bladed weapons - like the contents of my lecture yesterday - and why throwing it like that was not a very good idea. Right?"

That little twerp Yorike Ichiro had been running around the field all this time at a progressively slower pace. Each time he passed Iruka, the Chuunin just happened to be looking elsewhere than at the kid's wretched face. He was doing it so artfully that even Kakashi had fallen for it the first three times. But each time the kid stopped for a breather-

"Ichiro, you're not running?! Did you even manage one lap?! If you think you can become a Shinobi with that kind of weak attitude-"

Kakashi wondered if Ichiro would dare say a word for the rest of the class year. He also wondered if Iruka would be interested in taking over Interrogator Ibiki's post when the latter retired.

“Lunch? After seeing some of you aim, I'm not sure eating with pointy chopsticks is a good idea. Tell you what? Why doesn't everybody concentrate real hard and try again. If we can all hit the targets, we'll go eat.”

Iruka nodded brightly, as if the groans and glares were cries of assent. Kakashi knew it took a hell of a lot of practice to be that oblivious. His experience also told him that it was going to be long past their usual lunch hour before these kids saw anything remotely edible, pigeon-sushi excluded. He could tell this from the tight, toothy way Iruka smiled when one of the shuriken went way wide. Kakashi was also ready to bet Iruka had had a very big breakfast this morning; it’s what Kakashi would have done.

The teacher finally managed to coax the class away from causing indiscriminate havoc to the training field and each other (and the passing wildlife), and direct them into causing more precise havoc against the target dummies. They were showing a lot of 'high spirits' as the ladies below the tree put it. Kakashi, more familiar with students, recognized those ‘high spirits’ as homicidal frustration unable to be directed against its legitimate target on the grounds that said target was the teacher. 

Through it all, Iruka kept alternatively smiling with encouragement or shouting with disapproval as needed. He had a good drill instructor's voice, Kakashi noted with bemusement (he'd almost fallen out of the tree the first time Iruka had bellowed like that). Now that he thought of it, he'd heard that voice before, echoing through the village these past few years, generally with the word 'Naruto' tacked on to the end; he'd just never associated that kind of lung power with the mild-mannered teacher he regularly met. 

And talking of drills...Kakashi remembered that he'd asked his own little soldiers to assemble at eight sharp at the other end of the village, and he was getting late even by his standards. Reassured about the future defense and attack potential of his village - especially if they kept up those 'high spirits' and directed them towards the enemy when the time came - Kakashi left to watch over his own students, who were in for a few nasty surprises after all that inspiration. 

He would be back to observe Iruka later though. He was more and more intrigued.

 

\---

 

After a day that would have turned a saint into Orochimaru's bigger, nastier brother, Iruka watched the little monsters leave with a smile of pure affection that left Kakashi flat on his ass. Fortunately the Jounin was already sitting down - in a tree outside the classroom, chakra carefully masked - so his staggering amazement wasn't noted. 

The last student limped out. The beasts were considerably tamer now, and Iruka had only had them for a couple of days. Iruka patted the last one on the head as the kid exited and closed the door.

Kakashi watched with morbid curiosity, wondering if the teacher would crack, implode, cry, break things, swear, fetch a bottle from out of his desk- 

Instead of briefly leaving the classroom to go and torture small animals, Iruka sat himself down at his desk and started grading scrolls. Some of them were locked with jutsus, so they were probably from a more advanced class of his. He corrected at a good clip, but paused over one of the papers. He picked it up and smiled slightly as he examined it. Kakashi, craning his neck, observed there was a little doodle on the scroll, and not much essay to go with it. 

The schoolteacher chuckled. He must find that innocent and charming, Kakashi thought a bit uncertainly. Then Iruka murmured something.

Kakashi had expected it to be along the lines of ‘aww cute’ or ‘at least the kid tried’. But his hearing was excellent, and he didn’t think that was what Iruka had said.

It had sounded more like: ‘Little twerp...but I’ll turn you into a ninja if it kills me.’

Kakashi shook his head sharply. That tore it. Iruka wasn’t the man Kakashi had thought he was. Sure, he was completely committed to his job and his pupils, but he was also quick-tempered, strict, stubborn, inflexible, gruff, astonishingly loud when he wanted to be, and quite possibly just a little bit crazy, because that was the only way Kakashi could explain the equal measures of common decency and inspired sadism he’d witnessed today. The fact that Iruka probably saw the latter as ‘guidance’ instead of ‘out and out mental torture’ only made it worse. 

Well, Kakashi knew the truth now, a truth nobody else in the village seemed to suspect. Time to move on. He had better things to do than hanging around windows watching this guy now that he knew what the real Umino Iruka was like. 

 

\--- 

 

Iruka’s hand drifted from the paper he was correcting, with a copious application of red pen, to rest on his weapon. He must have felt Kakashi’s presence. The latter decided to announce himself and avoid any nasty pointy accidents.

“Yo.”

Iruka’s eyes flashed towards him in something like annoyance that the Juunin had snuck up to within five feet of him in his own classroom. That just confirmed Kakashi’s conclusions.

“Kakashi-sensei. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Can’t hope for a better opening than that. “Yeah, there is. Want to go out with me?”

He waited awhile for Iruka to stop spluttering. When the teacher finally fell silent, Kakashi glanced up from the fingernail he’d been cleaning with his kunai. “Well?”

Iruka was looking at him with open suspicion, although the solid red blush on his cheeks was promising. “Why?”

“You’re not quite the pansy I thought you were. I’ve decided you’re mean enough for me.”

“ _Huh?!_ ”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.” Kakashi sheathed the knife and left with a wave.

The lack of shuriken between his shoulder blades was undoubtedly a ‘Sure, Kakashi, I’d be delighted to go out with you!’. Kakashi walked away, filled with a quiet contentment that was very unusual and slightly disturbing. 

The trees were flowering enthusiastically all around him. Birds chased other birds in the intent of making yet more birds. Kakashi realized that he was actually planning to be on time tonight, plus or minus thirty minutes. Man, he had it bad.

Ah, spring. What a romantic time of the year.


	2. An Evening in Spring

It was seven forty four PM, not that Iruka was watching the clock at all. He'd be an idiot to watch the time and expect Hatake Kakashi to show up for a date at eight o'clock. 

For a few minutes after Kakashi had popped into his classroom to insult him and ask him out, Iruka had not known what to think. But he’d rapidly concluded that it was just some stupid joke at his expense, even though he was damned if he could see the punch line. He'd finished his day's work with rigorous exactitude and gone home at the same time as every other day. It was shortly before seven.

He spent a few minutes cleaning his place. This was not something Iruka did very often. The advantages of being a bachelor and male was that no-one, including himself, cared how long that dirty sock lived in the corner near the couch. He tended to clean up on a monthly basis, if that, and then he'd go pester Naruto to do the same. But when something really annoyed him, he found menial tasks to be a good distraction.

A few spiders got a nasty shock at being suddenly shooed out of the house, and a mouse that had established itself in the pantry found itself evicted. The kitchen was thoroughly bleached, up to and including that grimy bit between the faucet and the wall, which hadn't seen the light of day since he'd started renting the place. Iruka even cleaned the bathroom, which was something he normally paid old Mrs Kamara to do once every other week. The grout found itself encircled and relentlessly attacked. The soap scum was unable to form an alliance with it, and fell in its turn. The dust bunnies only put up a token resistance and the lint surrendered without a fuss.

Unfortunately, what with the speed and stamina of any decent ninja, it was only seven thirty eight by the time Iruka had cleaned everything in the tiny apartment. Not that he was watching the clock. No, he was just killing time. Waiting for eight o'clock to come around, so that when Kakashi didn't show up, Iruka could be decently mad. 

Iruka tried to relax and read a book. It took him one minute and six seconds to realize he'd opened it upside down.

Dammit.

The problem was, Iruka could have gotten mad right away and then forgotten all about it if there wasn’t a slim possibility that Kakashi might actually show up.

Iruka put down the book on the couch, using a kunai as a placeholder, and reluctantly trudged to the bathroom, where he spent a couple of seconds blinking at all the clean tiles and wondering what had happened here.

He took a quick shower. He took one before going to bed anyway, so he was just saving time later. Then he brushed his teeth, because all that cleaning had left his mouth feeling gritty. He combed and dried his hair, otherwise it'd be a mess, and he put on a set of clean clothes, because he felt like it and there was nobody around to comment about that, not even the mouse, who'd decided to wait until the human returned to sanity before trying to sneak back in.

It was two minutes and a few seconds to eight. Iruka gave up all pretence and just stared at the clock as the hands crept forward.

Eight o' clock. Kakashi hadn't shown up.

I knew he wouldn't, Iruka thought with a sniff.

He wasn't angry, though. Not very much. Oh, there was some swearing going on in the top levels of his mind, but below that, two other emotions were kicking each other around trying to take control of the rest of the evening.

One was disappointment. Because the reason Iruka hadn't said 'no' when Kakashi had asked him out was...well...the guy was hot. Really hot. Extremely hot. It was true that Iruka had yet to see his face, but a year ago, back when Iruka had decided Kakashi was damn hot, it wasn’t the man’s face he’d been looking at.

Fighting with the disappointment though, was something like relief. Iruka was a healthy young male whose busy schedule didn't allow him to get out as often as he wanted, but Hatake Kakashi was not an easy fling. The man was a Jounin, and tough and cutting as steel beneath that easy-going exterior, as Iruka remembered all too well from that episode before the Chuunin exam years ago. And that was only the start of it. Iruka and Kakashi knew the same people, they met occasionally around Naruto, they worked for the same administration, but Iruka was no fool; he knew next to nothing about Kakashi, and he was ready to bet that that was already more than most people in the village did. Iruka wasn't sure he wanted to take on the task of getting to know him, either. The man went everywhere with a mask, for crying out loud, and even torture couldn't get anything personal out of him (according to Naruto, whom Iruka had discreetly questioned on the subject). 

So it was probably for the best. Right. Iruka clapped his hands firmly. What to do now? Since he was on a cleaning binge, why not do the laundry? He was now wearing one of his last clean outfits. The laundry was another chore he tried to put off until it was either that or walk around naked.

But if he went down to the building's communal laundry room and Kakashi was only a bit late, then Iruka wouldn’t be in when the Jounin showed up.

Iruka refused to admit he'd even thought that, but the nagging doubt persisted...Naruto's List of Complaints, Item number two (right behind everything concerning Sasuke), was the fact that Kakashi was always late...

With some self-recrimination, Iruka decided to go work on an upcoming course for his fourth-year class instead of doing the laundry. After twenty minutes of sitting at his small desk, studiously working and forgetting _all_ about his annoyance and frustration, the lesson plan slowly taking shape would have frightened any student it was applied to, and many a full-fledged Shinobi as well. 

At eight twenty seven and a few seconds - but Iruka was _not_ watching the damned clock - there was a sharp rap on the door. Iruka’s suddenly tense grip pulverized his pencil.

He stared at the door as if it had leapt into the middle of the room. Then he dusted pencil shards from his fingers, stood up and walked over, his mind on neutral. He was just going to see who it was. Might be a door-to-door salesman, in which case Iruka was going to forget that he was a pleasant, much respected schoolteacher and do something primitive.

It was Kakashi, slouching against the far wall of the corridor. "Hi. Sorry I’m a bit late, I got lost inside a particularly deep and gripping thought about spring."

"Good evening, Kakashi-sensei," Iruka said, covering with knee-jerk politeness his bewilderment at the lameness of that bizarre excuse.

Kakashi immediately made a cut-off gesture with his hand. "Can we omit the titles? I get 'Kakashi-sensei' all day long in a context that's hardly relaxing."

"Okay."

Iruka knew he should add a rejoinder, but his mind was blank. He felt strangely unprepared. Despite showering and everything, he'd never thought beyond the single moment of Kakashi showing up. Well, Kakashi had showed up. Iruka...had a date...with Kakashi. The whole evening spread before the teacher like Terra Incognita. What did Kakashi have in mind exactly? Where were they going? Should Iruka have dressed for the occasion? 

The sheer amount of 'stupid' in that last thought snapped him out of his mental tailspin. Like many busy Shinobi, Iruka didn't have much in the way of civilian clothes. The only outfit he had that was dressier than his uniform was the ceremonial black slacks and tunic worn at funerals, and though he didn't know where Kakashi was going to take him tonight, it was certainly to be hoped that that would not be appropriate attire. Kakashi was dressed in his regular uniform, with the jacket zipped halfway down as the only sign of informality. If it was good enough for Kakashi, it would be good enough for Iruka as well.

"You ready?" 

"Sure." Iruka grabbed his keys and weapon holster from the side table. He put the latter down again, trying not to be too conspicuous about it. Kakashi wasn't visibly armed, and anyway, this was a date, not a mission. Iruka only needed his wallet, the small emergency dagger strapped to his wrist beneath his sleeve, his keys and a bit of level-headedness. 

They walked down Iruka's street side by side in silence. There were still people out and about at this time. Nobody gave them a second glance. Iruka tried to lose the feeling he had a three-foot neon panel with 'ON A DATE' floating above his head. Damn it, he'd been out on dates before. Though they'd never started quite like this. They'd never been with somebody like Hatake Kakashi either.

"So, how was your day?" Kakashi asked, as if he'd once read a book on the art of conversation and this was chapter one.

"...It was fine until somebody showed up in my classroom and called me a pansy." 

Iruka was rather pleased to be able to get this one out in the open before they'd gone more than two blocks. 

Kakashi scratched the back of his head. The eyelid of his visible eye drooped as if in effort at remembering what he’d said three hours prior. "I said you weren't a pansy. Didn’t I?"

"You said I wasn't quite the pansy you thought I was."

"Oh yeah, that's what I said."

They walked on side by side for a few more steps. Then Kakashi cocked his head towards Iruka. "Just how mad are you?" 

Probably not half as mad as I should be, Iruka thought, honest with himself at least. But he didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he fixed Kakashi with his sternest gaze, the kind reserved for unruly classrooms on the edge of a riot. He had the satisfaction of seeing the man take a casual yet prudent step out of strike range as they walked.

"Fairly angry. I guess you’ll just have to find a way of making it up to me," Iruka said tartly. He had no intention of letting another man pay for his meal, but he didn’t mind trying to squeeze a couple of free drinks out of the nonchalant bastard.

Kakashi stopped walking. Iruka’s own steps faltered as he turned back to find himself scrutinized carefully. The gaze was measuring. Then the single eye creased up into a pleasant crescent. 

"I guess I will. This way."

Iruka fell into step again, once more a bit uncertain about events. Kakashi was strolling along, hands in pocket, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"So where are we going?" Iruka asked, after a few blocks. They were heading the opposite way they should take if they were going to the centre of the village and its public places.

"This little restaurant I know."

The silence settled again, and lasted for quite some time. Iruka tried to examine his companion as discreetly as possible, but the streetlights were further apart out here, away from the main streets. That, and the mask and the headband and the attitude made it rather difficult to figure out what the man was thinking. Iruka tried to come up with something to say. 

"How was your day?" he finally asked. After all, Kakashi had enquired.

"I spent the morning up a tree. It was very instructive."

"I’m sure it was," said Iruka, who refused to admit to being completely lost in this conversation.

"I spent the afternoon badgering my team. Then I went and badgered a schoolteacher. We'll see what's in store for the evening. Here we are." Kakashi turned and headed down some concrete stairs to a set of iron doors. Iruka followed, perplexed but unwilling to show it.

They were in the large basement of a warehouse. Someone had had the eccentric idea of turning into a diner. Of sorts. The walls were unpainted concrete. The tables were set in booths with high metal partitions, so at first Iruka couldn't even tell if there was anybody there. The lighting was good; a bit too good, in fact, as it did nothing to hide the stains and scratches on the plastic tables and the sheer unloveliness of the walls. The air was heavy with the smell of grease and onions. Kakashi walked confidently through the rows of tables and Iruka followed, wondering where the hell he'd ended up.

Moving past the booths revealed their occupants. They were all sitting alone. Iruka recognized the first two people he saw; Jounin he’d met in the mission’s room. He didn't know the third, but there was an air of danger about him that spoke of upper ranks. That and the sword propped up like a dinner companion on the other side of the table. The fourth man was Morino Ibiki. He was reading a scroll and sipping tea. His eyes barely twitched up as Kakashi passed, but Iruka nonetheless felt that some form of silent greeting had been exchanged. His own polite nod was completely ignored, though he could swear he felt Ibiki's curious stare on his back as he walked on.

Iruka, still examining the place, slipped into the next booth. He turned to ask one of a series of questions, and realized he'd sat down at the wrong table.

"I'm sorry," he murmured to the Shinobi already seated there. He stood up and looked around. Where had Kakashi gone? The booths were high enough where it was hard to see. He could have sworn he was following the Jounin. Iruka took a step forward, trying to see above the chest-high partitions to find that familiar masked face and grey hair, while a strange observation was tapping urgently at the doors to his mind and gesturing wildly.

"...If you're looking for the bathrooms, they're to your right," came a familiar drawl behind him.

Iruka stared at the opposite wall. It had a calendar on it. It was dated three years ago, it was opened to the month of March and it had a pair of ugly puppies above the days. 

"Sit down, sensei."

Iruka turned slowly and sat down. 

"It's hard to eat with a mask on." It was jarring, that familiar voice coming from the bare face of a stranger. "I never wear it in here."

"Oh." Iruka felt like apologizing for intruding, or thanking Kakashi for the trust, or, well, something a bit more eloquent and on-the-ball than 'oh'. What was he supposed to do now? Presumably there was a reason Kakashi wore that mask. Did he expect the teacher to look away? Did he expect Iruka to not look at him during the entire meal? 

Iruka stared at the scratched surface of the table and made a decision. 

Kakashi, it seemed, enjoyed seeing Iruka off-balance. Or it might not even be conscious, just a by-product of his training and years of service. Shinobi really hated feeling confused. It went against the grain. Iruka had been trying to keep up with Kakashi in this bizarre sort of game that wasn't one, because...he really wanted to get to know this guy, against his better judgement. But it was time Kakashi got to know him, too. No more games unless Iruka also had a hand in the rules. If Kakashi didn't like that, fine. Iruka could always wait for the next interesting Jounin with a seriously hot ass to come along.

He lifted his eyes and stared openly at Kakashi's revealed features. Kakashi's lips twitched upwards at the corners. He didn't seem to mind.

The stranger in front of him had nice lips; expressive. Iruka wondered if that was why Kakashi wore a mask. As someone who also had a hard time controlling his facial expressions as a good Shinobi should, Iruka could sympathise. The rest of the face was okay. Long straight nose, clean-shaven cheeks, firm jaw. He had two scars, faded with time, one almost entirely covered by the headband over his left eye, the other on the corner of his chin. There were faint lines around the mouth; it looked like Kakashi smiled often. 

Kakashi put his chin in his palm, elbow on the table, and returned the favour of Iruka’s scrutiny. Iruka didn't mind either.

Just as it was turning into a staring match, there was a noise from the far side of the room: a series of regular thumps. Iruka leaned out of the booth to see what it was.

An elderly man dressed in a long apron came out of the doorway behind the bar at the end of the room. He was walking with a rolling gait that spoke of a prosthetic beneath his obi, and a mechanical clamp stuck out from the right sleeve of his tunic. Scars ran up the right side of his face to his high bald pate, making his head look like a cracked egg. His right eye was missing. The socket, without an eye patch, was pink and empty and seemed to be staring straight at the Chuunin. The old man didn't look impressed.

"Bring a little friend, Hatake?" He gave their table a perfunctory wipe with a greasy rag.

"Yes, his name is Umino Iruka. What's tonight's special?"

"Squid, soup n' rice."

"I can think of cleaner ways to die. What do you want to eat, Iruka? I warn you, none of it is very good."

Iruka gave Kakashi an uncertain look. There were no menus on the table. 

The waiter - or possibly the cook - was giving Kakashi a baleful glare. "Screw you, Hatake. Why do you come here if you don't like the food?"

"I come for your charming personality, didn't you know that?"

The old man extended the prosthetic arm with slow deliberation. One of the three articulated digits flicked upwards in Kakashi's face in a gesture that was pretty explicit even without actual fingers. "Charm this, brat."

"Don't wave anything at me that you can't afford to lose, old man." 

"I could take you down in my sleep, Junior."

The two men stared at each other, neither blinking, until suddenly the old man started to wheeze. Iruka realized he was laughing.

"What do you want to eat?" the cook asked, after coughing. He was speaking perfectly normally, and Kakashi answered as if nothing had happened.

"The usual. How about you, Iruka? Egg, vegetables and soba good for you?"

"Sure," Iruka answered a bit weakly.

"Come on, now, Kakashi," the old man said. "It's not my business to tell you how to treat a nice guy like this, but you better get him something better if you expect him to put out."

Iruka blinked and almost glanced at Kakashi- but he didn't like to be seen taking a cue from the Jounin. So he stared right back into the old man's filmy eye. "The soba sounds good to me," he answered, voice neutral. Then he added, quite honestly: "I doubt there's anything in this joint that would make it worth my while to put out."

The old man chortled and punched Kakashi in the shoulder with his good hand. Iruka had the feeling he'd just passed some kind of test. 

"I'll be right back with your orders and some beer," the cook said, and limped off to the next booth. "Ibiki, you want some more tea? How fucking pathetic are you, to sit here drinking alone, anyway? Why don't you go out and get a girlfriend? Kakashi managed, and you're not that much uglier than he is."

Iruka, bristling at the word 'girlfriend', barely made out the murmur of Ibiki's response. "More tea, less comments about my love life."

"Yeah, can't talk about what don't exist."

"I manage. You have to poison them with your food to stop them from running away."

The wheezy chuckle echoed again, and the old man limped off to insult a few more customers presumably.

Iruka leaned towards Kakashi. "Retired Shinobi?"

"Yes. A Jounin of the old school, though now the deadliest thing about him are his wits and his cooking." But there was a warm tone to Kakashi's voice. Iruka wondered what kind of fight had finished that old man's career. It must have been quite spectacular, and Iruka was willing to bet the enemies who'd attacked him had not had the luxury of retiring and setting up a diner afterwards; not if the man had the strength, drive and determination to keep an entire restaurant running as cook, waiter and manager, as was apparently the case, despite missing nearly half his body. Iruka was willing to bet the worst thing he could do to this beaten-up old warrior was to feel sorry for him, and the crotchety bastard made sure the idea would never cross anyone's mind. 

"Only high level Jounin come here, I'm thinking," Iruka said slowly.

"Yes, pretty much." 

"That would be why everybody in here is weird."

"I come here all the time."

"I rest my case."

Kakashi smiled like a cat with cream on its whiskers.

Iruka glanced around. Apart from the calendar, the only other decoration in the room was a dartboard up against one wall. It was probably a dartboard, though it would require forensic evidence to be certain. The cork in its centre had been annihilated, probably by having dozens of Jounin taking aim at it over time. The rest of the dartboard was pitted and torn, and the wall around it indicated that if the Jounin ran out of darts, they tended to use kunai and possibly small axes while drunk enough to miss the board one times out of two. 

From where he sat, Iruka could see that the bar counter, unattended at the moment, had been scratched and marked. Dozens of different names, Iruka realized as he craned his neck. He could make out the ones nearest if he squinted a bit, and he knew those names; people he met when he was assisting the Hokage in handing out A-rank missions. Some of the names were scratched out. 

Iruka finally turned his gaze back to Kakashi, who'd been openly staring at him all the while. "Why did you ask me out?" 

Kakashi shrugged easily. "It's spring."

Iruka felt a vein twitch in his forehead.

"And I need some adult conversation," Kakashi added with a lazy wave of his hand, forestalling an explosion. "Anybody who wishes they were teenagers again should spend some time with three of them armed to the teeth. I'd like to hang out with someone my age from time to time, between missions."

Fair enough, but if Kakashi just wanted to chat with a colleague, he would have met up with Iruka in one of Konoha's tea-houses or eateries. He wouldn’t have taken the teacher to this place, revealing a little bit of himself like the bar counter revealed a list of names living and dead. No, Iruka felt pretty sure Kakashi wanted something a bit more than adult conversation, so his real question was 'why me?'

Kakashi upheld the stare that followed, until he crossed his arms over his chest and glanced lazily at the calendar.

"Truth is, you just happened to be there, looking kinda nice at the right place and time," Kakashi said with all the tact of a double-headed axe. "I didn't think I'd have a chance with you to start with, but since then I've re-evaluated that. I think we both got a chance. I think you’re tough enough where I won’t eat you alive, but not so hard-ass that we’ll end up killing each other. I think you’re a good enough Shinobi to figure out when I need some alone time, but you’ve still got a lot of warmth and heart left. I find myself wondering what you felt when those kids first hit the targets this morning-"

"Huh?"

"- how you cope when one of your graduates doesn’t make it back from a mission, and I'd like to hear you tell me what it's like to take care of twenty kids in an only mildly risky situation that shouldn’t descend into violence at the drop of a hat." 

"Er-"

"Though of course, if you feel like having sex with me too, that would be great."

Iruka's jaw hit the greasy table just as the soba arrived.

The old man looked like he wanted to stay and listen in on the conversation, but Kakashi shooed him away. He uncapped his beer, took a swig and then dug into his soba. Iruka was still staring. He'd had to fend off - or encourage - some subtle come-ons in his time; he'd never been clobbered with one quite like this before. He wasn't sure how to react. He wasn't sure how he wanted to react, in this dive, with an unmasked Kakashi looking at him curiously and those words still hanging in the air.

"Kakashi...when they were handing out subtlety, where were you hiding exactly?"

"In the shadows, like a good Shinobi," Kakashi answered promptly. "Where's the problem? If you want something, shouldn't you just ask?"

"You mean, that was your pickup line?"

Kakashi looked at him with a slightly bemused smile. "I never thought of it that way, but yes, I guess."

"...You don't get lucky often, do you..."

Kakashi's eye widened and then creased in amusement, his lips parted in a silent laugh that didn't move any part of his body. Iruka stared in fascination, noting that if Kakashi had been masked, there would only be that ubiquitous eye movement visible, and that was hard to interpret. 

"A Shinobi makes his own luck." Kakashi lazily speared a duck egg with his chopsticks. "If you’re the kind of sensitive, bashful guy to run away from a straight proposal, you might as well start hoofing it now. You don’t have to answer right away. You don't actually know me that well."

No, but I guess I'm starting to, Iruka thought as his gaze travelled over the shoddy restaurant, the scarred old veteran, the dartboard, the names...He picked up his sticks, swirled the soba in the broth and sampled it. It wasn’t the best he'd ever had, but it wasn't anywhere as bad as the location had led him to fear.

They discussed Kakashi's team as they ate, and some of the other graduates. They talked about Sandaime and Godaime and a few other acquaintances they had in common. About education techniques and interrogation techniques (Kakashi had this strange habit of blending both subjects, and seemed to think Iruka would do the same). Iruka wasn't surprised to find that they'd finished their soba and beers and Kakashi had yet to mention a single personal detail. But he realized he didn't mind too much. The talk was comfortable and friendly, and Iruka was having a good time. More than that; a relaxing time, always appreciated by schoolteachers everywhere. The short range of conversation and the occasional silence didn't feel like a constraint. It felt like setting the foundation for several evenings to come where they could dig deeper, if they chose to.

The old man - whose name Iruka still didn’t know - casually dropped off two cookies in front of their empty bowls. Fortune cookies, to Iruka's surprise; hardly a common custom in Konoha. Iruka was about to ignore the confectionary when he noticed Kakashi looking at them with curious intensity. The Jounin picked his up, cracked it open, dropped the cookie and read his fortune out loud. 

"'Your smile is your best defence'. Yeah, that'll stop a kunai. What does yours say?"

When Iruka blinked at him, Kakashi grinned self-consciously. "Sorry, it's something of a tradition here. Don't worry about it."

If it was a tradition...Iruka picked up his cookie and cracked it open, extracting the small slip of paper.

"'You will’-" he started and choked as he realized what he was reading.

Kakashi cocked his head and snatched the fortune from Iruka's fingers before the spluttering Chuunin could react. His eye flickered over the sentence.

"Oh, one of those. Hey, old man! If I want your help getting laid, I'll be sure to tell you. Now give him a real one."

Something suspiciously like an amused snort came from Ibiki's booth. Then a cookie sailed through the air over the partition. Iruka's hand shot out and caught it automatically.

He unwrapped it, cracked it open and suspiciously read the fortune to himself first. It wasn’t some highly explicit prediction on how he was going to spend the night this time, so he reread it out loud. 

"'You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems.'"

Kakashi nodded his approval, as if Iruka had found that piece of wisdom in his soul instead of in a cookie. "That gotta be true. If turning that hot-head Naruto into a Genin doesn’t qualify as the most difficult problem, I don’t know what does."

Iruka kept one possible answer to that statement to himself.

 

\---

 

Iruka unlocked his door and glanced around prudently. At this time of night, the other apartments were quiet and the hallway deserted. He turned towards his dining companion who'd walked him back, hands in his pocket, after agreeably letting Iruka pay for half the meal. Kakashi had pulled up the mask again before exiting the diner, but it looked completely different now that Iruka knew the face beneath it.

"Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?" Iruka asked as casually as he could.

"I’ll pass. It's getting a bit too late at night for caffeine."

"Oh." Iruka tried to not feel too put down. Probably for the best-

"Er..." Kakashi suddenly looked a bit unsettled. "Was that some kind of allusion? I haven’t actually been out with anybody in ages."

Iruka looked at him carefully, but Kakashi didn’t seem to be pulling his leg. 

"Did you expect me to rip off my shirt and throw myself at you?" he asked tartly (and in a very low voice).

"It seems to work that way in the books."

"We don’t all have your notorious taste in literature."

"...Is it too late to say yes? I’ll even drink tea first-"

"Let’s get one thing straight," Iruka said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I rather like you. In as much as I know you, which is-..." more than he had at the start of the evening, Iruka privately conceded. "Which is not all that much, all told. I have the feeling I could really get to like you, and that you could drive me absolutely crazy. I think you’re serious about us getting, let's say, acquainted, but I also think you’re not used to letting people get that close to you, and you have-..." Iruka struggled a second between honesty and ingrained courtesy, "let’s just say you have your own very special way of saying and doing things. All told, the conservative estimate for the duration of a relationship between us is two weeks and we’ll hope it doesn’t end in homicide."

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, let’s stay optimistic. For starters, I rarely kill anyone outside of the job."

"Convention says that I should wait those two weeks to see if we might actually have a chance of getting somewhere before we fall into bed. But the way I see it is, in two weeks we’ll either still be together or we’ll have split up, and I don’t think sleeping with you will change that. So the real question is, do I want to get laid at least once during those two weeks or not? Are you coming in to get the bloody cup of tea or aren’t you?"

"Tea sounds great," Kakashi said, stepping into the doorway. 

"On second thought, we’ll skip the tea. I don’t think I want to see you on caffeine. That would be unsettling."

"Fine by me."

The door closed with a firm click behind Kakashi, startling the mouse which had been creeping back in through its own private entrance in the wall nearby. It paused and suddenly decided to sleep peacefully in the hedge outside tonight and to make its way back into the pantry tomorrow, which turned out to be a remarkably astute decision for a rodent.

**Author's Note:**

> I have several teacher friends. Anyone who thinks teacher=automatic-all-encompassing-love-of-all-children is on crack. They might lo- like the kids. A little bit. But they won't turn their backs on them, oh no.


End file.
